Gaza update: Families fleeing with only ‘the clothes on their backs’
Speaking from one UNRWA school in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, Ms. Wateridge said, for nearly 50 days, United Nations humanitarian missions have been trying to deliver supplies to northern Gaza, including the affected areas. surrounded like Jabalia, but still reaching desperate people. Demand has been greatly limited.
Louise Wateridge: Today I heard extremely terrible stories, about families fleeing Jabalia for their lives. They said there was nothing left. It was completely flattened. There was death all around them. They ran out of food. They don’t have access to water.
They came to UNRWA schools like this, looking for safety, but a few days after arriving, air strikes killed many of the people who had taken refuge there. And we have witnessed six such incidents at UN school shelters.
Since this siege began, we have had this terrible situation where people are forced to flee for their lives from the besieged north; they came to Gaza City in search of safety, but danger followed them. Death and destruction are their darkness.
United Nations News: What’s left in Gaza City?
Louise Wateridge: As far as the eye could see, every building was damaged and destroyed. You might see a staircase riddled with bullet holes, or an exposed living room jutting out from a third-floor apartment, signs that the place once had life.
About 300,000 people are currently in Gaza City and it is in ruins. That is why people are forced to take shelter in UN facilities because there is nowhere else to go.
As winter approaches, people are trying to find some shelter and safety, while protecting themselves from the elements. They need tarps, tents and shelter. They don’t have blankets or mattresses. They’re just outside.
Louise Wateridge, UNRWA Spokesperson (centre) after receiving the polio vaccine at UNRWA’s Deir El Balah health center.
UN News: How difficult is it to receive aid?
Louise Wateridge: For nearly 50 days, access to besieged areas in northern Gaza has been denied or obstructed. People don’t have access to food or water. We heard people say that they drank water from puddles to survive.
Eight UNRWA water wells in Jabalia were damaged and destroyed. Hospitals have been repeatedly attacked and all UNRWA medical clinics have run out of medicine.
Many humanitarian workers have been injured and committed suicide since this war began. Are they still at risk?
Louise Wateridge: Yes, every day. There is absolutely no safe place in Gaza.
247 UNRWA colleagues were killed in this war.
Time after time, day after day, our colleagues and their families are being injured and killed.
Every day my team and I wake up, the first thing we do is text each other to make sure everyone makes it through another night.
Within weeks, we had colleagues scattered throughout the Gaza Strip. Sometimes you lose contact with each other for days, if not weeks at a time, and we don’t know how they are doing.
Sometimes we find out our colleague has been killed and we don’t know for several days. Sometimes they come back online. What despair.
Several United Nations convoys were fired upon. I was in a convoy in July assigned to transport supplies to northern Gaza.
It is becoming increasingly more dangerous and more difficult for humanitarian workers to do their work.
